


One Drink

by Dairypie



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Realization, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 05:44:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11007198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dairypie/pseuds/Dairypie
Summary: Set after 3x23, Spoilers and Angst.“You are going to come upstairs, you are going to have a drink with me and we are going to talk”Iris finally gets Cisco to open up to her about how he's been feeling since his two best friends left on the same day.





	One Drink

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a little scene that has been bouncing around my head since the finale. I got a pretty bad cold so it took me a few days to finally feel better enough to write it out. This might turn into more fics, because I have some ideas to branch off of it, to keep me calm until the fall premiere. This was written in a bit of a rush and not entirely edited, I'll get back to it again soon, I just needed to get some feelings out to the universe.

“Iris come on, this really isn’t necessary” Cisco began “I have to get back to the lab early.”

“You are going to come upstairs, you are going to have a drink with me and we are going to talk” she said firmly. They were standing outside of her apartment building. “Trust me, you need this” Iris unlocked the door and upstairs they went.

Cisco shifted uncomfortably. He hadn’t been back to her apartment, since the first week of Barry’s disappearance. Being inside that place made him feel uncomfortable, mainly because it reminded him so much of his best friend and how he was gone. He honestly couldn’t imagine how Iris still lived there. It had been a month since it had all happened and despite how much had changed they were all still struggling to figure out this new life they now were a part of.

Iris unlocked the door and ushered him inside. The apartment hadn’t changed at all in the time. Their photos were still hanging up.  Iris moved to the fridge and set two beers on the counter. She took a seat at a stool, offering the one beside her. “Come on Cisco.” She said smiling.

Cisco sighed and sat beside her, opening the beer. He took a long drink. “Thanks” he said softly.

“It’s the least I can do, considering how much you have done for us” she replied.

He had been running the team almost on his own; he needed to be like four people at once sometimes. Julian and Iris were catching on more and more to their part of the team, staying by the coms, but it was taking longer than he hoped. And there were all the side things he was working up, finishing up their new labs and base, trying to find a way to get Barry back, and Caitlin. He took another long drink as he thought about her.

Iris was watching him thoughtfully. “Now this is when you are going to talk to me.” She said confidently.

Cisco laughed. “Oh?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“You haven’t been yourself, you’ve been….” She paused.

“Depressed? A pessimist? Serious?” he offered, she nodded. Cisco shrugged. “Both of my best friends, just up and vanished on the same day. For good. My lab exploded, all my research gone. And I’ve been trying to fill very big shoes and it is crazy difficult. I can afford to be a bit solemn.” He snapped, his voice raised and hand tightened around his bottle. He closed his eyes and took a drink. He took a sip. “Look, I’m sorry I just..”

She put at arm on his shoulder. “You do not need to apologize. We are all allowed to have emotions. Do you not think I am angry too? And frustrated?” she replied, squeezing his arm comfortingly. “I don’t care what Barry told you, you do not need to protect me from those emotions. We are only human.”

A silence hung over them.

“Why did you invite me over Iris?” he asked finally.

“So you can vent, if you want. Or cry. Whatever you need to do. Everyone is a bit worried about you. Are you sleeping?” she said slowly.

Cisco rubbed his eyes. “Sleep is a fickle mistress” he murmured “I try but…” Cisco thought back to a few nights when he gave into sleep. Then the visions and nightmares that followed. That’s what haunted him now. He would just relive that night over and over. And vibes were out of his control again. He knew he needed to see someone to change his medication dose, but that’s a hard task to accomplish in this moment.

Iris clearly didn’t need to hear anymore, from the look of pain on his face she could tell. She didn’t know as much about him as she would have licked but Barry would mention things in passing. She hugged Cisco gently. “We’ll figure it out” she said softly. “You’re doing such a great job. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

“Thank you” he murmured, hugging her back tightly. He honestly didn’t feel like he was, but hearing it helped lift the load on his shoulders.

“You don’t have to bear this alone. We will all figure it out, we are still a team.” She reminded. Iris released the hug. “If I believe anyone is going to bring Barry back, it’s you” She placed a hand on his cheek. “Do you want another one?” she asked motioning to his empty bottle.

He nodded. “Yea, if you don’t mind” he replied.

Iris got up and pulled another two from the fridge. She sat back down beside him.  “So…”

“So…?”

“When you vibe, you see her don’t you?” she asked finally.

Cisco looked down at his hands. “I try not to, I’ve tried to see Barry but” he shook his head. “It’s always her” His voice is strained. “I can’t do the one thing she asked me to do! She asked me to let her go and…and I can’t. My subconscious keeps looking for her.” Cisco took a long drink. “I have the cure kept in a box on a shelf, just in case she comes back. I haven’t changed my locks, because she used to have a spare key, just in case….”

“She wants to come home” Iris finished, nodding, her eyes filled with understanding.

“I still text her Iris, and call her. I used to try texting and calling Barry in the beginning but the messages kept bouncing back, guess he has no cell service in the speed force. But Caitlin…still has her phone on and uses it, I see the read receipts.” He confessed quickly. “I just keep hoping one day I’ll call and she’ll actually pick up and talk to me. Or I’ll get the vibe at the right time and catch a moment with her before she goes.”

Iris watched him intently, as all of his emotions bubbled to the surface spilling out of him.

“We used to be the _tres amigos_ , the golden trio, and the three musketeers and now, it’s just me. And if I could just have one of them back it would make things so much easier and I wouldn’t feel so lost all the time and worried I was making the wrong choice.” He paused to take a long drink. “They were all I had for a long time and now, I’m back to square one.”

“You still have us” Iris countered quickly.

Cisco smiled sadly. “I know, and I consider you my friends, my new family. But its not the same.” He murmured. “You know exactly what I mean, which is why you haven’t moved out of here or removed the ring”

Iris nodded, she wasn’t just going to brush the memory of Barry off without trying her best to bring him back first.

“I just keep wondering if there was anything I could have done differently to get them to stay, something I could have said” he paused.

“Barry was always going to go into that speed force; you and I both know that. But you aren’t talking about him, are you?” Iris replied, watching him carefully. As he was silent she took a sip of her beer, as the pieces finally began to fall together. “How long?”

“What?” he asked, meeting her gaze.

“How long have you been in love with Caitlin?” she asked.

He sighed. “Since the beginning I guess.” He replied, shrugging. “I keep wondering if I would have told her, told her before she was gone forever and turned into Killer Frost or whoever she is now, maybe she wouldn’t have left.” He felt a few tears well up in his eyes and he blinked them away.

“Then you should tell her.” She said simply. “Maybe, she won’t come back because she thinks you won’t forgive her that you don’t need her or won’t still care about her how she is now.”

Cisco ran his finger over the rim of the bottle, his lips in a fine line. “I thought all of that time fighting Killer Frost would have changed how I felt. It never did, it just made things harder. Savitar tried to use it against me, it was making me weak. And the moment I fought against those feelings and threw the cure at her…I just keep asking myself if I had handled that all differently-“

“Cisco stop” Iris said suddenly. “It is in the past. There is nothing you can do differently. You can’t just keep throwing around the what ifs. Otherwise you will never sleep again. You just have to accept that what happened, happened. You gave her a choice, a choice she never had before and a choice she still has. But we all grow, we all change. I’ve been struggling with those feelings too, until I realized that focusing on that takes away my energy from focusing on how to get Barry back.”

Cisco watched her intently.

“So instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, we are going to fight, and we are damn well going to put up a hell of one.” She said firmly.

Cisco smiled. “Alright Iris” he agreed.  They clinked their bottles of beer, in cheers of long months ahead of them. This was only the beginning, and they weren’t alone. They had both lost people they cared about and Cisco realize that it was okay if he leaned on Iris for support just a little bit until he figured out what all these different vibes, meant. It was going to be an uphill battle but they were a team.

 


End file.
